How to be more emotionally available

Love has the possibility to hurt you. To love someone is wonderful. But it also means opening yourself up to the possibility of being betrayed and taken advantage of. Love is a risk. Despite this, you have to try and be more emotionally available because amazing relationships are an important part of life. Maybe the most important part of them all.

How to be more emotionally available – The crash course

Get to know your emotional landscape, don’t deny yourself sad feelings. Instead, feel your emotions.

Don’t distract yourself by overdoing work or exercise or watching too much TV.

Take deliberate breaks from your phone, computer and social media in general.

Let go of your need for control.

Practice emotional closeness with friends and family.

What does it mean to be emotionally unavailable?

Early on in life, we all learn to control our emotions. When we hurt ourselves emotionally or physically, we hold back the tears and the frustration. We might push an emotion such as sadness to the side and not allow ourselves to feel this emotion.

We get out of touch with our emotions

This is a survival strategy. It is also part of growing up and becoming an adult. But sometimes, for some people, this process of mastering our emotions goes too far.

We lose touch with our emotions and might find ourselves in a situation with too few emotions.

Signs that you are emotionally unavailable

There are many different signs that you are, in fact, emotionally unavailable.

Let me give you some examples. 1. You have a hard time getting into a relationship.

2. Once you are in a relationship, you have difficulty letting your partner in and allowing them to really get to know you.

3. You have a hard time trusting people.

Feelings elude you

Many people are emotionally available to friends and family but have difficulty finding and opening up to potential lovers. In this case, you have a hard time feeling love. You also often have a hard time feeling other feelings.

Choosing emotionally unavailable partners, for example, someone who is married or someone not suitable agewise, or simply not interested, is a way of being emotionally unavailable.

Thus, picking the right partner is my first tip on how to become more emotionally available.

Find your unique solution on how to become more emotionally available

You might be in a relationship, or you might be single, but the question is still the same; How do I become more emotionally available?

Every person is unique in their emotional nonavailability. Not to worry, the solutions are similar and easy to tailor to your specific needs. No matter your personal destructive patterns, there is a way to open up.  

This question is also worth asking yourself in regard to friends and family. We all want amazing relationships, but we don’t always know how to get there. Allow me to point out the way.

Get to know your emotions

For many of us, emotions are a bit dirty. So the first step in this process is to stop being negative about your emotions. Don’t try to suppress them; instead, regard them as clues to healing yourself.

Become better at naming your emotions. Tell yourself what you are feeling. Stay with your emotions. Make an active choice not to put your emotions to the side.

You suppress your emotions

We often don’t allow our emotions because we think they are invalid. You are not allowing yourself to feel sad or upset because someone always has it worse. You are not starving, are you?

Try to give yourself permission to feel emotions. Emotions are not a sign of weakness. By allowing yourself negative emotions, you will feel positive emotions more intensely.

Why do we have the need to protect ourselves?

Many emotionally unavailable people report that early on in life, their needs were ignored, and thus they built the great Chines wall around themselves.

They deny themselves emotions to protect themselves. But now you are a grown-up, and you can realize that having emotions are brave.

Tell yourself to trust

Instead of dismissing yourself and your need, try to own your needs. We often shun from being emotional because we don’t want to look dumb. Allow yourself the risk of being emotionally open and trust the people around you to respect and take care of your emotions.

Don’t distract yourself

In this day and age, we distract ourselves with all kinds of means. We have our phones, dating apps, shopping, working too much, and overeating. There are also the more classic forms of distraction, Such as drugs, alcohol, and over-exercising.

All these distractions have one thing in common: they suppress your true feeling. You don’t want to feel, so you alter your emotional state of mind with your “drug” of choice.

Find out your pattern of distraction

You should make a list of the different things you do to keep yourself distracted, and by doing that, keep yourself from feeling. Don’t allow yourself to indulge in your distraction.

If you are always on your phone or computer, take a couple of hours or even days away from the machines. The more time you spend away from distractions, the closer you will become to yourself and your emotions.

Chose other activities

Whatever your drug of “choice,” you have to limit yourself.

You naturally open up your heart by doing other more mindful activities such as yoga, meditation, and long walks in nature. You become more emotionally available by being more present. Here is a great article about mindfulness.

Avoid overdoing your preferred activity

Working, training, and dedicating yourself fully to a passion is nice and acceptable. But if you are emotionally unavailable, you will simply do too much.

You have to break the circle of distraction. Go cold turkey for a couple of days of any given week. Force yourself to find new, more fruitful ways of existing.

Let go of your need for control

Having control over your life and yourself is often a positive trait. But with emotionally unavailable people, this positive character trait is often taken too far. They strive towards too much control.

The emotionally unavailable person wants to control what other people think about them. And thus, they never let anyone come close enough. Does this sound familiar? Are you a person who tries to control all aspects of your life?

Challenge yourself to an outcome you can’t control.

Try to narrow down areas where you usually like to have a lot of control, and then try to loosen the control. Try new things and new experiences. Especially things that scare you.

I know you are hard on yourself. I know you are disciplined. This is all good—most of the time. But to become more emotionally open, you must step away from your control and self-discipline.

Work on being less critical

Another form of control is when you are very critical. For example, you are critical of other people, and often very critical towards yourself. You have adopted this critical mindset to put your guard up.

Try to catch yourself being overly critical. Recognize this voice for what it is—one alternative, but not the only alternative.

Be kind and generous

Practice being less critical, both towards yourself and towards people in your inner circle. This practice is especially important when you start dating someone. Try and tune down your critical voice.

Admit the fact that you are afraid

Being emotionally unavailable is, at its root, a form of fear.

You are afraid of the harm other people can cause you. Thus, on an emotional level, you stay away from other people. They scare you.

You might not want to admit to this because that fear can be hard to discover. You might think you are normal and happy, and you just have bad luck with your relationship.

Name your exact fear

But the more you can bring out your unique fear into the daylight, the more you will realize that it is just fear and that the fear is holding you back.

Be honest with yourself by doing an inventory of your fears. Do you fear getting stuck in a loveless marriage just like your parents? Or do you fear being alone for the rest of your life?

Is the fear valid?

Another common fear is that your partner will be unfaithful or that you will be the unfaithful one.

Whatever your fear, be vocal about it. Bring it into the daylight by articulating that exact fear. Take a look. Decide that this fear should not dictate your life.

Deepen your connection with the people around you

You might want to become more emotionally available to stop being single. Or become more emotionally available in the relationship you already have. This is all good and worthwhile pursuit.

But you can practice becoming more emotionally available with other people around you. For example, with your friends and family. Do this by being fully present when you interact with them.

Find out who they are

Try to ask them deep questions and listen to the answer.

Put in an effort to get to know them and understand them as unique persons unlike anyone else. Check out our article How to get someone to open up emotionally for more tips on how to have amazing conversations.

Tell people your secrets

Also, practice the art of telling people around you deeply personal things about yourself. Allow them to get to know you, the real you. All the bad and the ugly things about you: be open.

Become closer by doing something together

Are you not liking the idea of deep conversations? Another way to connect with people is to do something together. This can be a sport, enjoying the outdoors, or building something together.

Not all emotional closeness stems from talking. Emotionally closeness also occurs by being together and doing something together and being present at that moment and free from the various forms of distractions I mentioned before.

Some additional tips on how to be more emotionally available

One of the best ways to become more emotionally available is to seek professional help.

Having problems with intimacy is a common problem and one most therapists are very familiar with.

You can also check out our article about manipulative behavior, just do the opposite and all your relationships will become much better.

Get off the internet

If you, on the other hand, are looking for the fastest way to become more emotionally available, I recommend shutting off your phone. Not having the phone to distract you will force you to deal with more emotions.

In addition, limit how much time you spend on social media and other similar platforms, such as dating apps. If you only make this small change in your life, you will be better at connecting with yourself and thus more open to other people.

Be kind to yourself

Another easy way to become more emotionally available is to pep-talk yourself. So much of what we are in life is connected to the inner monologue we have going on.

Don’t let your inner monologue be plagued by negativity toward yourself. Never tell yourself things like that you are lazy, fat, boring, or undeserving. Never tell yourself that you are an imposter.

Keep your mental landscape a place where you are emphatic, generous, and kind to yourself, very much the way you would talk to a close friend you like and respect.

A Final Note

Being emotionally available is about risking everything. Sometimes being hurt in the process, but still keep being brave and vulnerable. Because you know you can take care of yourself. You can meet your emotional needs, but you want to connect with others.

Nothing in life is more important than having a deep and satisfying connection with the people around you.